Various types of gear transmissions are known which are characterized by arrangements of plural fluid actuated clutches for drivingly connecting an input shaft to an output shaft through external gear meshes whereby the speed and direction of rotation of the output shaft may be selectively varied. U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,411 assigned to the assignee of the present invention pertains to improvements in the abovenoted general type of gear transmission.
In the art of gear transmissions for winch drives, wheel drives and similar applications it is desirable to make the transmission as compact as possible without sacrificing multi-speed capability. Moreover, it is also desirable with such types of applications for gear transmissions to provide the power shifting capability which may be obtained with fluid actuated multiple disk clutches or equivalent devices.